----- Original Message ----- From: "Jan Coffey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 3:13 PM Subject: Re: Bitter Melons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Jan Coffey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 7:41 PM > > Subject: Bitter Melons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable > view. > > > > > & other posts on this topic to boot. > > > > > > 1) Your doing it again, and this time, you are smothering a > perfectly > > > reasonable discussion on this human reaction which needs a name, > with > > > a frivilous and debatable discussion on WWII. (yet again) > > > > Nah, one post cannot smother a reasonable discussion. The fact of > the > > matter is that you have not been successful in persuading people to > accept > > some of your main premises. Thus, there is no discussion on how > and why > > those premises are true. Indeed, your postulates require the > dismissal of > > a large body of information; which makes them empirically suspect. > > I was not refering to the anti-semetic macro-thread, but rather the > point that most people seem to jump to knee-jerk asumptions ...(what > this thread was originaly about.) But, your arguments really didn't support that. Take states rights, for example. Historically, it originated with the Southern apologist school of history arguing that the Civil war was fought over states rights. There are a myriad of reasons why this is a smokescreen. Recently it was point out, I think by Gautam but I won't swear by it, that the South supported the most overwhelming pre-war abridgement of states rights by the federal government: the Fugitive Slave Act. During the argument over segregation, the segregationists relied heavily on States rights. One of the main apologists for segregation later admitted it was not a question of states right. Given this, it is very reasonable to be suspicious when "states rights" is brought up in American political discussions. Thus, this doesn't qualify as a knee jerk reaction. Since we've been covering Israel extensively, I'll only lightly touch of this. First, let me point out that everyone that I know of who has defended Israel on the list has also registered disagreement/disapproval of the policies of the government of Israel from time to time. This should indicate that not all criticism of Israel is considered anti-Semetic. Second, if you look at the unreasonable public criticism of Israel, you will see that there is an extremely high correlation with the expression of that criticism and other typical anti-Semetic expressions. Look at the folks who voted to call Zionism as a form of racism (ignoring much more xenophobic places like Japan, or France or Germany) and you will see many of them have embraced historical anti-Semetic big lies, like blood libel, "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and denying the existence of the Holocaust. I don't see how it is reasonable to call the noting of these strong correlations as knee jerk reactions. > > The fact that some people of the same ethnicity were at war with you > does not give you the right to force them into concentration camps. > Sorry, but that is "exactly like". Why do you keep on insisting what didn't happen happened? Who tried to wipe out Israel, a number of Arabs _including_ Palestinians who later lived in refugee camps. Who pushed the Palestinians who remained in Israel to leave? Mostly the Arabs who suggested that loyalty meant that the needed to leave. What happened to the Palestinians who stayed? They became citizens of Israel. Who set up the refugee camps? Egypt and Jordan. Who kept them in the camps for the first 20 years? The Egyptians and the Jordanians and the other Arabs who refused to let the refugees settle elsewhere in their lands. The reasonable criticism one could level at Israel was the failure to work hard enough to improve the conditions in the camps while they were under their control. But, that is not exactly like a program to kill all Palestinians. >We did the same thing to the Japanese in WWII as well, didn't we? What we did to the Japanese-Americans was different from both what Israel is doing and what the Nazis did. It is exactly like neither. What we did to the Japanese-Americans was intern them. If you look at the original concentration camps you will see that what was done there was significantly worse than what the US did to the Japanese-Americans, and not nearly as bad as what the Germans did to the Jews: http://www.anglo-boer.co.za/concentration.html "In early March 1901 Lord Kitchener decided to break the stalemate that the extremely costly war had settled into. It was costing the British taxpayer £2,5 million a month. He decided to sweep the country bare of everything that can give sustenance to the Boers i.e. cattle, sheep, horses, women and children. This scorched earth policy led to the destruction of about 30000 Boer farmhouses and the partial and complete destruction of more than forty towns.. Thousands of women and children were removed from their homes by force.They had little or no time to remove valuables before the house was burnt down. They were then taken by oxwagon or in open cattle trucks to the nearest camp. Conditions in the camps were less than ideal. Tents were overcrowded. Reduced-scale army rations were provided. In fact there were two scales. Meat was not included in the rations issued to women and children whose menfolk were still fighting. There were little or no vegetables, no fresh milk for the babies and children, 3/4 lb of either mealie meal, rice or potatoes, 1 lb of meat twice weekly, I oz of coffee daily, sugar 2 oz daily, and salt 0,5 oz daily (this was for adults and children who had family members on commando)." What Israel did was accept the refugee camps as they were without trying to solve the problem. On the plus side, during the extended time of relative peace, they handed control of many/most of these camps over to the Palestinians and provided jobs for a number of the residents. So, we the actions of Israel were far better than the actions of the US during WWII, which were significantly better than the actions of the British during the Boer war which were far far better than the actions of the Germans during WWII. >I would also say that is "exctly > like" What was done in Germany. Now, there was much -MORE- done in > Germany, and MUCH WORSE! But, "much much worse" isn't "exactly like." One might argue that there are similarities and not be anti-Semetic, which you seem to do. I would differ with this, but not label it anti-Semetic. So, that's an example of being critical of Israel without being anti-Semetic...from your own writings. :-) > Besides, you Dan, quite often do this, you twist words to mean what > you want them to mean, context be dambed, knowing full well what the > original speaker ment. Huh? I usually try to look that the plain and simple meaning of text to understand what is written. I don't doubt that my understand can, from time to time, vary from the author's intent. But, I really don't think I twisted the words "exactly the same" to any unusual meaning. The strongest example of exactly the same is one like "two electrons are exactly the same." They are literally identical; there is no way to tell one electron apart from another. So, in electron scattering, there is no way to determine which is the incident electron, and which was the electron that was static to begin with. The weaker understanding can be seen in an example given by the son of a friend of mine when he said "these two puzzles are the same" His dad didn't see at first, because the pictures were quite different. His young son then pointed out that all the puzzle pieces fit together in exactly the same way, it was the same puzzle, just different pictures. If someone were to say that was exactly the same puzzle instead of just saying they were the same, it wouldn't be literally true, but I wouldn't quibble. The differences are in the accidental properties of the puzzle, the essential properties are the same. How is this understanding twisting the words? I've given other examples of how the words are normally used in early posts if you don't like these examples.. >Arguemnt for arguemnt's sake, not to find > truth, not to understand a disagreement, not to proswade, simply to > win the argument. Often an argument that you yourself have created. Well, you make statements that I differ with. I didn't realize that you found it offensive for people to differ with you and to back up their opinions with facts. > You can acuse me of Anti-Sematism, but it doesn't make me an anti- > semite. It stands that disagreeing with the policies of a nation, > does not make one a raceist. I thought that we were discussing the professor's comment. I did not mean to directly accuse you of anti-Semitism. I was merely pointing out why his statements fit so well in the pattern. If you look at the history of anti-Semitism, which goes back over 2000 years, you will see that "the big lie" is part of the pattern. Blood libel, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Jews poisoning the wells are but three examples of this. But going back over your post, I think that our interpreting a statement of yours in two different ways may have resulted in my writing something that you interpreted in a manner different than I intended. Your statement was: "2) No one, even the professor we were discussing in the previous topic, ever compared Israel to Nazi Germany on an equal scale. The comparison was based on an axis, and suggested that both Israel and Nazi Germany in WWII are on the same side of the origin. Exaggerating another's concept and then debating the exaggeration is akin to lying about hearsay. " When you referred back to #2, later in your post, I thought you were referring, again, to the professors comments; which I hold to be anti-Semetic. I pictured you as arguing the point "his views are not anti-Semetic", not arguing for anti-Semitism. Things you have written subsequent to that post (in fact in the post to which I'm responding right now) have increased my confidence in this picture. So, I consider your posts to be in error, but not anti-Semetic. But, I'll be happy to accept that the words I wrote were too ambiguous, and wish I was clearer in my word choice when I wrote. Indefinite specifics are often the cause of this, and we were both using them. So, my criticism of you posts is: "Jan's analysis in his posts is flawed, thus rendering the arguments he makes invalid" rather "Jan's posts are anti-Semitic." There is nothing wrong with criticizing posts, IMHO. > > > 3) The information you have provided about Hitler is a bit > > > questionable. There is evidence that he was appaled at what was > going > > > on but could not stop it. > > > > Cites? > > Whenever you get backed into a corner on some arguemnt or another > Dan, you scream for cites. I can finde cites, I can dig up history > books that talk about there never being any direct link between > Hitler and the orders. I could also find cites for the oposite. Well, I guess we have a fundamentally different understanding of how one can understand the empirical world. Your posts appear to put you in the Aristotelian camp; one need not look or consider data, one can handle things from first principals. Aristotle was brilliant, but his views that wind cannot be moving air (because they are in different categories) or that heavy objects must fall faster are so obvious that a gentleman need not dirty his hands by actually performing experiments is faulty...IMHO. I usually call for cites when I think someone is posting unsubstantiateable points. Its for those times when, if what the poster argues is accurate, there should be some data that strongly supports this viewpoint. > But you know exactly what you have done here. > > You removed the next paragraph where I say that not stoping it at > least not as the leader of an impire, trying to stop it, is just as > bad as if he did give the order. You are once again making a non- > argument. Notice I said "a bit" questionable. I was not stating as > you would have the reader believe a factuality, but rather stating > that there are differing opinions among historians. I've read a bit on this, including primary source material. I've discussed this with folks who've done more extensive reading in this area. In all of this work, both personal and the work of others, I have not seen the premise that Hitler tried to stop the Holocaust supported. I've never seen in put forward by anyone serious. I've noted a pattern in your posts containing strong claims that are inconsistent with both a number of analysis and a number of facts that I'm aware, all without strong backing for those claims. An example of this is your claim that anti-Semitism was the result of Jewish control of banking. It is extremely hard to reconcile this with the 1000 year or so difference between the recording of anti-Semitism in writings that are preserved to this day and the beginning of significant Jewish participating in money lending in Christian Europe. If you want cites on this, I'd be more than happy to provide them. :-) Another example was your comments on Israel setting up the equivalent of concentration camps. Given that pattern, I wanted to see your basis for the comments on Hitler. I realize that you weren't trying to argue that Hitler was really a swell guy. I cut that part where you made that clear because I had no real differences with it. I wanted to know where you got the idea that Hitler may have tried to stop the Holocaust. >From other posts, I found you saw something on the History Channel. As Damon has pointed out, that's not really much of a reference. For example, there was a piece on that channel that claimed that LBJ was behind JFK's assassination . They will put provocative stuff on for ratings that are not well vetted. Thus, seeing something on the History Channel is really a poor reference. Its true that you can find some historian on any side of an issue. That doesn't mean that there is not a good way to determine what is likely, unlikely, and very very unlikely. For example, its quite unlikely that the Civil War was fought over states rights. If this sort of argument were valid, then creationism and evolution would just be two scientific theories...without any way to decide between them...because biologists who have done solid work in the past are creationists. There is a way to check technique on an argument and separate the wheat from the chaff. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
